“ Already, the Ukrainian government had cut off pensions for all those living inside the rebel-held zone, stopped paying public service salaries and sharply increased the inspection of shipments coming in and out of the area — to the point that humanitarian groups have complained that it was affecting crucial relief shipments

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Anyone making the trip from rebel-held territory toUkraineproper to get money from a Ukrainian bank account, where the A.T.M.s are no longer functioning in Donetsk is now impossible. The Ukrainian Nazis authorities are now doing all they can to punish their own Ukrainian citizens living in a rebel areas, by halting cross-border movement, deploying the full force of bureaucracy on the more than three million people living in the Ukrainian rebel-held areas. The Ukrainian government put in place new border restrictions in recent days — requiring a special pass that is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain — a deliberate policy of isolating and frustrating rebel-held regions. There is no banking system in the rebel areas, it is an all-cash economy. Residents on the Ukrainian side who want to get into rebel areas must apply at one of a handful of remote police stations and then wait 10 days. .” A woman taking applications said : “ Every day many people come here, they cry and beg me that they need the pass. But I refuse all of them!” All applicants who try to circumvent the official checkpoints, by using secondary roads, they will be treated as potentially hostile targets.. The traffic between the parts of Ukraine controlled by rebels and those controlled by Kiev has dropped by almost 90 percent since the new passes went into effect

U.S. soldiers willdeploy to Ukraine in the springand begin training four companies of the Ukrainian National Guard, but that is just the latest initiative as the U.S. continues to beef up its presence in response to the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The US Army still plans to add 100 armored vehicles to Europe, and in March will send in the neighborhood of 3,000 soldiers from the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division to multiple European countries. The U.S. has stepped up its training exercises in a number of other countries bordering Russia and the Black Sea, from Estonia through Bulgaria.